Working, but barely making ends meet

New report from United Way of Wisconsin reveals nearly 40 percent of Brown County households have financial hardships.

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As she receives a hug from her 8-year-old son Fischer, right, Valerie Spiering helps 5-year-old son Larken stir green peppers in a frying pan as they prepare dinner at their Green Bay home Tuesday night, Sept. 13, 2016.(Photo: Todd McMahon/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo

Those special Saturdays aren’t meant for splurging, however. When the weather is nice, the Green Bay family likes to head over to Lake Michigan for some fishing on a pier. Taking a short drive to other parts of the state to visit with family and friends is another favorite activity.

“Not anything extravagant,” said Valerie, summing up the lifestyle she and her husband have been accustomed to over 10 years of marriage and eight years as parents.

The Spierings are among nearly 1 million households in Wisconsin in which working parents are struggling to make ends meet.

The United Way of Wisconsin on Wednesday released its first ALICE Project report that spotlights hardworking residents in the Badger State who are challenged financially to afford basic needs. Those include housing, food, healthcare, childcare and transportation.

ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.

A total of 960,131 households in Wisconsin, or 42 percent of state households, were considered to be struggling to support themselves based off the project's analysis of data from 2014.

That includes about 290,000 households with incomes below the national poverty level and 670,922 households that are earning more than poverty rate but less than the basic cost of living.

The latter segment is referred to as the ALICE population.

“We all know ALICE,” Charlene Mouille, executive director of the United Way of Wisconsin, said in a statement released by the organization Wednesday. “ALICE is the recent college graduate unable to afford to live on his or her own; the young family strapped by child care costs and the mid-career professional now underemployed. These folks are vital to our state’s future economic well-being, and they face barriers beyond their control, frustrating their ability to become financially stable.”

Wisconsin joined 14 other states that have participated in the ALICE Project, which started in Morris County, N.J., in 2009, to better understand the struggles of the working poor.

More than 30 United Way chapters in Wisconsin, including Brown County, supported the project.

“We just think that there would be a service to provide this to everyone in our state,” said Greg Maass, president and CEO of Brown County United Way.

The prevalence of financial hardship in the county and statewide was eye-opening for Maass and other administrators from the local agency, which helps thousands of needy people in the community with more than 40 programs and initiatives.

A struggle to survive

The Wisconsin ALICE report gives an in-depth snapshot of each county and breaks it down further with a line-by-line chart for the municipalities in each county.

In Brown County, about one in 10 households were living in poverty in 2014, based on the federal poverty level of annual income of $11,670 for a single adult and $23,850 for a family of four.

Another 27,000 households, or 27 percent of the county's 101,533 households, made up the ALICE population — living below a threshold for being able to afford basic necessities. The bare-minimum, cost-of-living budget for the county, which factored in economic conditions for the region, came to annual incomes of $22,008 for a single adult and $56,040 for a family with two adults, a preschool-age child and an infant.

“Those (struggling) quarter of households are going to schools and they’re trying to use healthcare and keeping their cars running or using the mass transit system,” Maass said. “All of that kind of speaks to how communities are trying to keep this workforce productive, keep families productive within an environment that’s challenging for them.”

Green Bay, by far the largest city in Brown County with more than 100,000 people, has the highest concentration of the county’s working poor. Forty-nine percent of the city’s 42,358 households were considered to be living below the ALICE threshold in 2014

Struggling households also make up a 40 percent or more of the population in Ashwaubenon, Bellevue (40 percent), Denmark and Pulaski.

“This report provides the objective data that explains why so many residents are struggling to survive and the challenges they face in attempting to make ends meet,” Stephanie Hoopes, the report’s lead researcher and the ALICE Project national director, said in the statement from the United Way of Wisconsin. “Until now, the true picture of need in local communities and states has been understated and obscured by misleading averages and outdated poverty statistics.”

Maass hopes the release of the state report leads to community discussions about how to help those living in financially precarious situations.

The Wisconsin report indicates 89 percent of the state’s ALICE households are headed by someone who is white.

Joe and Valerie Spiering know the difficulties well. They have been relying on just one steady income — Valerie’s pay as an early childhood director with Encompass Early Education & Care Inc. in Green Bay.

Joe, 49, delivers pizza and counts mostly on the tips he receives from customers.

“It’s wise spending and good saving,” Valerie, 38, said. “We’ve been good, but we don’t have a lot of kickback in savings.”

Joe’s flexible work schedule has helped the family save on some costs. He’s able to get both of their sons — Fischer, 8, and Larken, 5 — to and from school during the week.

Joe, a Gulf War veteran in the Army, also is handy and has done a lot of repairs to the aging home the Spierings own near downtown Green Bay. He also works on their vehicles.

Joe and Valerie’s modest house is filled with used appliances and furniture. They have relied on hand-me-down clothes for the boys, prepare most of their food, don’t have cable or satellite TV, and make instead of buy most gifts for the kids at Christmas time.

“It’s a sacrifice. We just have to make a choice sometimes — newer or older,” Valerie said. “We have to pick and choose between what’s a necessity and what’s a luxury.”

And, just scraping by isn’t a sure thing, even though the family gets some financial assistance with reduced fees for school lunches and Joe's benefits as a veteran.

“It still would be a matter of a missed paycheck and we would be hurting,” Valerie said.